All These People
by Tawa bids you good day
Summary: Whatever Harry was expecting beyond the veil, it wasn't this. A story that is meant to be both humorous and poignant. BetaRead, Oneshot.


A/N: Don't own any of it. Not Harry, Not Sirius, not the Veil. Not a thing. Except…that girl right there, the one without a name. I own her. In a manner of speaking.

This fic was scribbled down over a year ago, before HBP. It didn't need much adapting. I've finally put it somewhere the rest of you can read it. So what is it? It's one of the more unorthodox fics I've written. Enjoy.

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In an unlit dormitory in the top of Gryffindor tower, a black-haired boy slept uneasily, stirring beneath the covers of his four-poster bed. It was the last night he would be sleeping in this bed for many weeks: tomorrow, he was going to board a train that would take him away from Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry and return him to London and the ordinary muggle world. Harry Potter – for that was the boy's name, of course – was not looking forward to returning to his Aunt and Uncle's house in Little Whinging. But, to tell the truth, he was not looking forward to much at the moment.

His fifth year at Hogwarts had drawn to an end, and with it had come the loss of a very important person from Harry's life, a person which – not surprisingly – had occupied his thoughts very often since his death. And tonight, he had entered Harry's dreams, which was also something that perhaps could be expected after the loss of someone so dear.

It seemed, at first, that there was nothing particularly unusual about this dream. In it, Harry found himself standing on the topmost tier of a great bowl, rather like an amphitheatre. Rows of stone benches fell away below him, flattening in the middle like a stage. In the very centre of the pit stood a raised dais, so crumbling and cracked it looked as if it should have collapsed years ago. Upon this dais was a stone archway in which hung a torn grey shroud which seemed to flutter imperceptibly as if in a gentle breeze.

This place was very familiar to Harry. He had stood here only a few days before, fought a battle here beside friends and enemies. As he thought this he found that he was remarkably aware of himself, considering he was dreaming. He looked down at his own hands and realised he could inspect them in perfect detail, and that he was wearing his plain black school robes, which felt very heavy and real for a dream. His feet were bare.

Harry was just about to pinch himself to see whether this really _was_ a dream or not when a voice beside him said softly, "You made it, Harry."

Harry turned sharply, recognising the voice in an instant, and warmth spread through him. A man stood there – a tall man with long, dark hair pulled away from his face, a man who was smiling a mischievous smile as if he was pleased to have surprised Harry. His face looked much younger than when Harry had last seen him, clean-shaven and less gaunt. Sirius Black looked, in fact, as he would perhaps had looked had he not spent twelve years in the wizard prison of Azkaban.

Harry knew now, without a doubt, that this was a dream. It was not so much the fact that Sirius was standing here beside him, in this impossible place. It was more the fact that Harry did not think this an unusual occurrence. It seemed perfectly natural that his Godfather should be standing here with him, as if they were merely meeting for a casual walk around the park.

"Where are we going?" Harry asked. He was thinking very clearly, and everything around him felt very real. He could feel the cold stone beneath his bare feet, and the scratching of his collar on his neck. He could also, very faintly, smell a familiar smell of outdoors and unwashed hair that he always associated with Sirius.

Sirius raised his arm and, without speaking, pointed down into the pit at the archway with its fluttering veil. Then he stepped forward and began to climb down over the large stone benches. Harry hurried to catch up, stubbing his toe on the floor in his eagerness to follow his Godfather. It throbbed painfully, as if trying to reassure Harry that this was not an ordinary dream any longer. He ignored it, catching up with Sirius and falling into step beside him.

"Behind the veil," Harry mused aloud. Since this was a dream, he decided it was more natural to speak his thoughts as they came to him. "I think I understand now. Is it – death, beyond there? Will Mum and Dad be there?"

Sirius looked at him and smiled sadly. "No, Harry. Perhaps that is where the _true_ veil leads – but this veil does not hide death. No."

"Oh," Harry could not help feeling a little disappointed. "Well, what _is_ there, then?"

"You'll see," Sirius nodded mysteriously.

They had reached the flat stage at the bottom of the pit and now walked up to the raised, crumbling platform. Sirius vaulted up onto it very easily, as if he weighed nothing at all. Harry again had the sense that this was Sirius as he _would_ have been, had Azkaban not drained so much of his life from him. A little awkwardly in his long school robes, Harry put his hands on the platform and heaved himself up after his Godfather.

As he put his foot on a jutting bit of rock, he heard a scraping and felt the crumbling stone give way beneath his bare toes. For a brief instant, he saw the edge of the platform rushing towards his head, and knew he was going to collide with enough force to give him a concussion, and then firm hands grabbed his arm and Harry was brought up short, inches from braining himself on the broken edge.

"You alright?" Sirius gasped as he pulled Harry up onto the platform. Harry nodded, his knees shaking for the fright but otherwise unharmed. Sirius did not let go of his arm, as if afraid his Godson might collapse where he stood. Harry found he did not want him to let go.

Sirius straightened Harry's collar. "There we go. I suppose you should look your best."

"Why?" he asked. His Godfather finally released his hold on his arm and turned towards the veil.

"To meet _them_," Sirius teased. He raised his arm and swept the fluttering curtain aside. From where he stood, Harry could not see anything beyond but more grey. Sirius held out his hand, smiling as he said, "Are you ready?"

Harry took the proffered hand, feeling a warm, strong grip close over his fingers, and nodded as he stepped forward.

"Then through we go," said Sirius quietly, and the two of them stepped under the archway. The veil fell back into place behind them.

Harry raised his head and looked around, blinking. He was not sure what he had expected – sunlit fields? Empty abyss? A bright light at the end of a tunnel? – but it had not been this. They were still standing in the great pit, on the raised dais. They did not seem to have gone anywhere: they were still in the department of mysteries.

But at once he saw that something had changed. The rows and rows of stone benches that surrounded them in tiers were no longer grey and empty. The amphitheatre was filled with people, more people than Harry could count. They were not sitting up in their seats like people watching a performance on the dais where Harry stood: in fact, not one of them seemed to be watching the arch, nor had they seen Harry and Sirius arrive.

These people were absorbed in something else. They were positioned all around the benches, some lying on their backs or flopped on their fronts, some curled up with their heads bent or sitting cross-legged looking at their laps, some even standing and pacing back and forth, watching their hands. They were not making much noise for a hall full of people: there was only a faint shuffling as somebody stretched out their legs, or a distant cough, or the rustling of paper.

"What are they doing?" Harry asked. Sirius was still holding his hand and pulling him forward like a child eager to please a doting parent.

"Reading," he said breathlessly. "Come on, I've brought you here to meet them."

"Meet them?" Harry repeated, hoping his Godfather would elaborate, as Sirius jumped off the dais and turned to help Harry climb down.

"Yes," Sirius said, and he was hurrying now, smiling over his shoulder at Harry. "I'm not supposed to, of course: it's against all the rules. But I was never one for rules, was I?"

Hearing Sirius talk about himself in the past tense seemed to hit Harry sharply. His Godfather was dead and he was dreaming – what was going _on?_ "Who _are_ all these people?" he asked in a bewildered voice.

Sirius did not answer. They had reached the bottom tier of the benches now and Harry saw that, indeed, every one of the people were holding open books in their hands and reading, completely immersed. They did not seem aware of where they were, or of all those around them. Harry caught a glimpse of the cover of one of the books, and saw a red and gold bird bursting out of a roar of flames. Another cover was completely blue, and yet another was black, with another bird.

"Sirius," he said, catching a hold of his Godfather's sleeve. "Sirius – that book's got my name on the cover. Look! It says _Harry Potter _on the cover!"

Sirius turned to him and patted him on the back. "Come and talk to them," he whispered.

"Sirius, what's going on? Who are they?"

"Ask them yourself." said Sirius.

They were now standing right in front of a boy who was leaning against the stone bench, holding an open book in his lap. The boy was about Harry's age, with tanned skin and blonde hair, and a very plain face. He was wearing a white T-shirt and blue boxer-shorts. He frowned, and suddenly looked up and saw them standing over him. He stared at Harry, a puzzled expression on his face.

"Hello," he said, and his accent sounded rather strange. "I suppose I've fallen asleep, and I'm dreaming?" he rubbed his eyes and yawned. "That must be it. I was up pretty late, but I just had to finish the book before I went to bed."

"Yes," Harry agreed. "Er…who are you?"

"Nicholas Williams. I'm from Brisbane, Australia," the boy said, still looking up at Harry. "I'm not crying. I couldn't possibly cry: not over a book," he said fiercely, and with that, he looked back at the book and continued to read.

"He wants to cry, though," Sirius said, unable to contain a snigger. "And all because of me. Silly, isn't it? Come on," he was grinning madly now.

They walked along the bench, their footsteps strangely loud in the huge hall. Now that Harry looked around, he saw that many of the people sitting around them were children, or teenagers, though a good number of them were adults as well.

A girl was lying on her stomach with the book in front of her, her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wide with horror, and as Harry walked past, she looked up at him. "It's too awful – it's not true! It's not!" she shook her head. "I'm Emily Roberts, I live in London," she added. "Me and my friends love the books."

"Oh. That's good," said Harry unsurely.

A woman in her thirties was hunched over the book, biting her lip, as Harry and Sirius approached. She plucked at Harry's sleeve when he came close. "I'm Jenny, Jenny Cole," she said desperately. "I live in Florida, and I write fanfiction in my spare time," she was looking at Harry, her eyes shining with tears. "Harry – tell me it's a trick. He'll be back, won't he?" she swung her gaze on to Sirius. "You'll be back, won't you?"

"Er…" Harry did not know what to tell the woman, but Sirius took his shoulder and pushed him on, leaving the woman behind.

A boy no older than eleven was sitting cross-legged, mouthing the words as he read them. He smiled at Harry. "Hello! I'm Bernard! I live in New Zealand. I'm really sorry, Harry," he said. "I really liked Sirius."

"Um…so did I," Harry said to the boy as they climbed up onto the next tier, even though they had only passed a few of those on the first level. The boy waved goodbye, and then went back to his book.

A blonde girl in her late teens frowned at Harry as they passed, and said something in a language he couldn't understand.

"I think that was Swedish," Sirius told him as they passed the girl. "There are a lot of people here who don't even speak English. Funny, huh?"

Another girl was weeping into her hand as she turned the page of her book, tears streaming down her face. Harry paused to kneel down beside her. "Are you alright?" he asked softly. The girl looked up at him.

"Daniel told me how it ended!" she sobbed. "The brute _knew_ I hadn't finished the book – he came running up to me at school and yelled 'Sirius Black dies!' I threw my calculator at his head, but I couldn't make him take it back. Oh, I hate him, I hate him, I _hate_ him!" she said bitterly, and then suddenly pulled Harry into a one-armed hug, nearly choking him. "I'm sorry, Harry, I'm so sorry! Sirius – he was – _I_ wasn't ready to lose him…"

Sirius helped Harry disentangle himself from the girl and pulled him onwards. They passed a woman reading the book aloud to her five-year-old son, and the woman raised her hand to Harry, still speaking to her son, _"… 'to Harry it was meaningless noise, nothing mattered except that Lupin should stop pretending that Sirius – who was standing feet from them behind that old curtain'_…"

Harry stared at her as they walked on. "You weren't, though," he said quietly.

"No," said Sirius. "I wasn't. I couldn't come back."

They passed a Japanese girl reading with her mouth hanging open. She called to Harry, "Don't lose hope! I think he'll come back! I'm Misa, from Tonosho," as they passed.

"A lot of people still believe it," Sirius told Harry as Harry waved to the girl. "But I think I've stopped hoping."

A young woman in her early twenties was standing with the book in her hands, seething. As Harry and Sirius approached, she looking up and pointed at Harry furiously. "I'm Georgia Michaels, from New York. Why don't you go after him? Why didn't you?" she yelled. "You should have gone after him! You could have saved him!"

"That's not the way things go," Sirius told her, and she balled her fist at him, snarling.

"Harry – hey, Harry!"

They both turned to see a boy sitting two tiers above them, waving to them. He was holding the book open on his knee. Harry felt his jaw drop. He scrambled up the two levels, Sirius hurrying to keep up with him.

"Cedric?" Harry said weakly, as the boy took his arm to pull him up the last step.

"What are you doing here?" Cedric Diggory grinned, waving the book at Harry. "I was just reading about you in the fifth book! I'm really sorry, Harry – you've had a rough year anyway, and that's a rotten way to end it."

"But…" Harry was still staring at Cedric. "How can you be here?"

"Hello, Black," Cedric smiled as Sirius sat down next to them. "I see you're breaking the rules already."

"You're not supposed to be here either," Sirius laughed. "Come on, Harry, we've got to keep going."

"Bye!" Cedric waved to him, and then returned to reading.

Another young man beckoned to Harry. "How you holding up, kid?"

"I'm okay," Harry replied, having never seen the young man in his life.

"Well, we're all here for you. I'm Ollie Johnson, by the way, from Newcastle, England."

"I know where Newcastle is," said Harry defensively.

"Course you do. I'm dreaming, you see," the young man said in an assured tone as he turned a page of the book. Harry noticed that there were a number of other books spread around him, including one with a brightly-coloured dust-jacket, which Harry picked up.

He read the title, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," he looked up at Sirius, "What does it mean…?"

"Ah, now, you shouldn't be looking at that," Sirius snatched the book guiltily out of his hands. "Better not know _too_ much," he looked down at the cover sadly. "Especially not about the ending. It would only spoil things," his Godfather handed the book back to Ollie Johnson and picked up another.

"Can I borrow this?" he asked the young man, who nodded without taking his eyes away from the page. Sirius pressed the book into Harry's hands. "Here," he said softly. "I think you'll like this one."

Harry looked at the cover of this new book, which said, _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_. "Is this one…about you?"

"Yes," Sirius said, herding him onwards.

They continued to walk among the readers, who called their names to Harry as he passed, and cried condolences to him and Sirius.

"I'm Imka Merte, from Denmark – I'm sorry, Harry, I know what Sirius meant to you…"

"Good luck, Harry! I'm Pia Felipe, by the way – I'm from Chile –"

"_Je m'appelle, Georgie Benoit – _I wish to say good luck to you, 'Arry!"

"We're here for you, Harry – Tom Lee Pramana, Indonesia – I've read them all…"

"Nancy Clinton, Texas – don't give up, Harry, don't you dare stop fighting…"

"Vicky Davidson, pleased to meet you, Harry – we're gonna get her for you – Bellatrix Lestrange – we're gonna make sure she pays for what she's done!"

Harry waved to them, accepted their hugs, said, "thank you," more times than he could help. It was the most surreal thing he felt had ever happened to him: walking among these strangers, who knew his name, who knew everything about him.

At last Sirius looked at his watch. "I think we'd better get going. You're going to wake up soon," he started climbing back down the tiers, the two of them navigating their way around the people still sitting and reading. The strange people continued to wave to him before they turned back to their books.

Harry and Sirius reached the floor at the bottom of the pit and climbed back onto the raised platform in the centre. Standing in front of the archway with its fluttering veil, Harry looked back at the rows and rows of people, still engrossed in their reading. Some of them glanced up to take a last look at him. He raised his head to see where the tiers ended and realised with a jolt that they _didn't_ end. The levels rose on and on, for as far as the eyes could see. And all of them, the children, the adults, the people from England and the people from across the globe, all reading a book with his name on it…

"How many are there?" he asked, feeling his throat constrict.

"Thousands," Sirius told his softly. "Millions. I don't know."

"Why did you bring me here?" Harry clutched the book Sirius had given him more closely to his chest.

Sirius smiled sadly, then he put his arms around Harry and pressed him to his chest. Harry closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of his Godfather for what he knew would be the last time. Sirius rested his cheek on Harry's hair, and spoke.

"I didn't want to leave you," he said quietly. "It wasn't my choice. But before I left, I had to show you that you weren't alone. All these people, Harry, they all felt what you felt. When I died, they were _there_, with you, they were screaming when you screamed and struggling when you struggled. I had to show you that you're never alone in all this."

"Have they always been there?" Harry asked.

"Always," Sirius said.

He stepped back and took Harry's hand once more. Harry blinked, forcing away his tears. This, then, was the last time he would see Sirius?

They pushed back the veil and Sirius lead Harry back the way they had come.

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With a jerk, Harry awoke in Gryffindor tower, his heart thumping. He fumbled for his glasses, and ripped back the curtains, looking around desperately. He could faintly hear Neville's snores from across the room, and Ron rolling over in his sleep. Dean and Seamus were silent. There was no one else in the room. The smell of Sirius's clothes was still fresh in his mind, but it was fading, fading…

Harry looked down at his hand and saw that he was holding a book. Trembling, he turned it over, but the cover was white. There was nothing written on it. He frantically opened it, flicking through the pages. But every leaf was completely blank.

Harry lay back on his bed, dropping the book to the floor. It had been a dream. A very odd dream. Nothing more. He was upset, and these vivid dreams were to be expected. The book must be one of Dean's notepads discarded on the floor, and Harry might have picked it up while he slept. _But I can still remember every detail…every word Sirius said…_

What had Sirius meant, when he had said that all those people were there for Harry? Had they always been there for him? Were they here now, in the room? Were they listening to his thoughts?

"Just a dream," he muttered, rolling over and pressing his face into his pillow.

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A/N: Most of the real-life people mentioned in this fic are real Potter fans from around the world whom I have met or spoken to over the net. Can you guess which one I am?

Big thanks to Mae for beta-reading. And for being the sweetest thing on the net!


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